This is a difficult episode to break down. On the one hand, I barely even want to try because we clearly do not have enough information to explain the sequence of events, but on the other hand, the way these mysteries now hang in the air comes off to me as more confusing than intriguing. Overall, if asked, “Was this episode good for the show’s plot, and was it good for the larger mythos of Star Wars in general?” My answer to both of those questions would be a no.
Many fans didn’t like it, and while some can at least peer through the surface-level cultural criticisms and see the foundation of a mystery that might eventually have an interesting revelation, this show does not appeal to the masses and it will not be seen as a critical or financial success. Whether you enjoy it or not, the viewing numbers are not good for the premiere. 11.1 million viewers over 5 days is an abject failure. Ahsoka got 14 million over the same time with about half the budget of the Acolyte, and Disney wasn’t even satisfied with that performance. Yes, it’s D+'s “biggest premiere of 2024”, but have you looked at the competition? This is only their third show to launch this year, the others were “Echo” and “Renegade Nell”. That news line is an article title spun to create misleading good press for a D+ streaming platform that is hemorrhaging money and sprinting toward another quarter in the red. Iger has stated that their model failed to meet their goals, Star Wars has massively failed to bring in the money they expected it to, and we are seeing a product of that overall planning failure in the Acolyte. That does not at all mean that The Acolyte itself is “the worst thing Star Wars has ever done!!!”, I only preface this review to say that Disney tried something with many of these shows and it didn’t work financially. After Skeleton Crew and Andor S2 (maaaaybe Ahsoka S2) which are products of the old/current D+ model, we should expect to see something very different going forward for Star Wars.
Anyway, I want to focus on analyzing the episode itself now. I thought that some of the introduced ideas were fun to explore on paper, but in the episodic structure of this show, the execution of communicating such ideas was a mess and did not generate increased interest or emotion in me, and perhaps did the opposite.
Pacing and Structure
I was excited upon seeing the 44-minute runtime, as the brevity of the premiere was my primary criticism. I thought the overall pacing of Episode 3 was superior to the first two, however, even though I do generally prefer slower stories, I was actually left feeling sort of bored with this episode until the Jedi showed up. I’ll explain more in another category, but I was having trouble knowing who to empathize with or relate to in this opening 20 minutes, so the slow pacing left me feeling quite lost as to the intended direction of the plot. Overall though, I was actually pleased that this 44-minute episode felt like it had a story to tell in this designated timeframe, and it performed adequately at pacing the events throughout. I would have preferred a driving action at least 5 minutes earlier because the Witch stuff was somewhat offputting and made me feel uncomfortable, but once the Jedi walked in I could understand some of the setup.
The structure of the episode was a bit confusing. They left out scenes (intentionally, I believe) and presented situations that didn’t make any sense due to the information we were missing. Perhaps you can say this is an effort to generate intrigue for future episodes, but I would say that the sequence of events that unfolded did not make me more interested in learning what the revelations are, but rather they simply annoyed me because they seemingly painted other situations as nonsense. For example:
- Why does Mae hate the Jedi so much when it seems like they were quite willing to negotiate and Sol showed great empathy?
- Why does Torbin feel so much guilt when Mae was clearly the initiator of the violence?
- How did all of the Witches die so suddenly in the same place?
- What were all of the other Jedi doing during this very quick fire/destruction?
I fully expect answers to all of those questions and suspect our Sith figure has a significant role to play in all of this, but even brainstorming possible solutions with that in mind… I struggle to come up with answers that would justify all of these events. There would need to be some extremely high-quality writing to deliver on all of this setup and mystery. I feel worried about potential shallow and unsatisfactory revelations more than excited about the answers. I don’t think that’s an unfair caution I have, because thus far, none of the show’s revelations have given me any reason to think anything groundbreaking/mind-blowing is coming. We are ~38% through the entire show and I still have no idea what the direction is. Full flashback episodes are distracting in nature in general, and this seemed like it was intended at one point to serve as Episode 1, but then moved to Ep 3 due to anticipated backlash if it were to lead as the premiere. It felt very out of place in the episodic structure of the show as a whole.
Dialogue and Writing Quality
The dialogue quality took a complete nosedive in the episode. I would go as far as to say it is the worst dialogue I have heard in any singular episode of a Disney Star Wars show. The poem Mae and Osha repeat is extremely on the nose and awkward to listen to (we have heard it multiple times now, and it really violates the “show, don’t tell” rule), the Witch chant “The power of one! The power of two! The power of maaannnyyy!” was truly painful to listen to, and the worst offender in the episode, “You can’t stop me.” “Yes, I can.” “How?” “I’ll kill you.” was so poorly written I was completely 100% taken out of the scene. I understand a huge theme of the show is this dichotomy of light v dark represented in Osha v Mae, but the dialogue is so beyond elementary it is insulting how simply they are trying to communicate that to me. “The Jedi are good.” “The Jedi are bad.” “It’s not about good or bad…” This is middle school theater writing. I know that outside of Andor and some scenes in the OT, Star Wars has never excelled in this area to begin with, but this is a different level of low quality than even PT criticisms. As Mae and Osha stand on a collapsing bridge, the lines legitimately go, “What have you done?” “What have you done?” “What have you done?” Three times in a row back and forth… The rest of the episode was simply quite bland in this department, and certainly not enough to cover up the smorgasbord of poorly written and delivered lines.
The writing in this episode left us with way more questions than answers, which is strange for a 44-minute flashback. Usually, that is done to reveal mysteries, not create new ones. As I prefaced this review, this is the hardest section to cover because I genuinely cannot critique or praise many of the events because we have no clue why or how they happened. Things like the dead Witches, the character motivations, the Jedi guilt, Mae’s anger, how the fire spread so quickly, why the Jedi were even there in the first place, etc. are all unanswerable. I will leave these open for now and return when we have the proper context to address them as revelations unfold in future episodes. For now, let’s focus on three newly revealed storyline details.
-
A sect of outcast force users (seemingly, EXTREMELY powerful/in tune with the force) band together to form a Witch “coven”. Some seem to have roots and history with the Nightsisters of Dathomir (hinted that they were exiled?), while others in the coven seem to have joined seeking refuge/safety as they delve into practices the “galaxy” doesn’t approve of. It is unclear if all of the women are force-sensitive, or if some are merely there in support of others who are. I find it hard to believe that so many force users went undetected as children and then all banded together in an extremely powerful coven without the Jedi intervening prior. We see humans, Nightsisters, Twi’leks, and some sort of rat-like lady in this coven, so for whatever reason these people have banded together without a common geographic origin. They aren’t Nightsisters themselves and with various species intermixing, I’m not even sure why they are all women. All we know is that together this group was apparently “hunted, persecuted, and forced into hiding,” however we are given no idea as to who did that. The Jedi…? Where/when/why was this randomly assembled coven shown to be such a threat to the Jedi? The Jedi never historically cared about the Nightsisters. As long as they stayed out of the way, they were free to practice whatever cultish beliefs they wanted to. Nightsisters traditionally worshipped “Spirits” rather than the force, rejected the light v dark dichotomy, and believed they communed directly with the beings of Mortis and drew their “Magick” from them rather than having a connection to an all-surrounding force presence. Obviously, they had a somewhat incorrect interpretation, but they still had great power, perhaps some even possessing power greater than the Jedi or the Sith (we saw this in TCW and the Jedi game series). Nightsisters were having their own biological children the entire time with the nightbrothers, and the Jedi weren’t preying on their entire species/people group, so I just didn’t understand where all of this “persecution” to “the brink of extinction” was coming from. Certainly not the main Nightsister clans, because they would never chase this group around the galaxy like the Mother indicates. I really don’t know what could be going on here. The Mother states that they have hidden away because “The galaxy does not welcome women like us.” Again, I was utterly baffled at this idea. The “galaxy” doesn’t give a shit about the Nightsisters or tiny sects of isolated Magick users… They never have. They have always let them live in isolation and practice their rituals in peace as long as it doesn’t disrupt the Republic. On top of this, the Mother is immediately previously shown very peacefully interacting with the local towns in peace, seemingly very welcomed by “the galaxy”. Not only was that oddly phrased, but certainly the persecution had nothing to do with them specifically being women. I am going to avoid the 2024 cultural discussion entirely, but I understand why people feel that they can read modern Earth politics into this. A simple, lore-accurate alteration to avoid this entire drama would have been, “The Jedi do not welcome into their Order Witches like us who use powers they consider to be ‘dark’.” Boom, done, none of the distractions are included, it’s true to Star Wars history, and it’s understandable why they wanted to leave the Republic where the Jedi commonly patrol. I don’t doubt Jedi would be uncomfortable around Magick users and conflict could potentially arise, but this “hunted to the brink of extinction” idea, I just don’t know where it’s coming from.
-
The Mother has a unique perspective of the force, and I have no problem with primitive cultures like this coming to alternative understandings of the force, but I don’t understand what their philosophy even is. She claims that the Jedi “use” and “wield” the force, and portrays that as a negative way to commune with it. She then contrasts that with her Thread theory in a positive light, saying by “pulling it” you can “change everything”, “tie you to destiny”, and “bind you to others”. To me, that sounded exactly like “using” and “wielding” the force… Perhaps I am missing the future context of her beliefs, but I saw absolutely no difference between the two viewpoints and it came off as a different, yet equally exclusive and dogmatic belief. If anything, I would say that her views more closely align with the dark side than the light, as Jedi do not pull the force to intentionally “change everything” and “bind to destiny”, they commune with it in peace with all living things and work toward mutual good and order (ideally, speaking). Either way, Osha and Mae are trained in this alternative understanding of the force and we can see the results. Both are left unbalanced and struggling to maintain inner peace, which is not a good quality to have in Star Wars.
-
Somehow, in a presently unrevealed manner, the Mother created life and implanted twins into her partner’s womb. It’s hard to comment specifically on this yet as we have no clue as to how she accomplished this, but what we can say is that this is beyond anything we have ever seen in Star Wars. It is a power always thought impossible. This is the time period in which Plageuis was experimenting with such powers and attempting to do this to create the perfect apprentice, but he failed. The force itself created Anakin to restore balance as it was, at that time, unbalanced due to the many manipulations and attempted usages of it for purposes it did not will for. So Osha and Mae being directly conceived by the Mother purely through the force is… confounding. We need more information to properly understand what happened here, so I will just say this has the potential to be problematic to lore, but not necessarily depending on where they go with it.
Overall, with these strange new practices and beliefs, I found the writing to be confusing and trying to seem complex when it truly wasn’t. It came off to me as pretentious and not building anything good upon Star Wars mythology. I love the Nightsisters and their religion of Magick, I love alternative beliefs about the force (the ancient Sith, the Rakata, the Zakuul), but this episode was just not well written in communicating a cohesive new understanding of the force in my opinion.
Production Quality and Creative Direction
The episode opens up on a beautiful and colorful setting. It invoked in me a sense of wanting to travel there and experience the galaxy full of mysteries, so I appreciated the design. I thought the sky and atmosphere looked great during the Witch ceremony, dark and purple hues definitely set a voodoo-like tone. The Witch coven building was nothing special, but it wasn’t intended to be. It gave off abandoned dam or mine vibes. The costumes here were okay, I thought it was a little strange for this persecuted and on-the-run group of Witches to have such perfectly coordinated and pressed robes… But I suppose one of them there is an excellent seamstress and they value having noble appearances and jewelry. Nothing wowed me other than the initial garden, but that old rat lady Witch was shockingly poor CGI. Looked absolutely atrocious. I would say that is unacceptably bad for a $180 million budget. I forgot to comment on it in my first review, but I am very disappointed by the soundtrack thus far. I have heard no standout tracks, and while it’s not distractingly bad or anything, I would say it’s the weakest I’ve heard from D+ Star Wars shows. I think TRoS had the worst soundtrack, and I’d put this in the same category of bottom-tier Star Wars music. I hope when the Sith shows up he will at least get things moving musically.
This episode was very focused on beliefs, culture, and identity, so I covered a lot of the creative direction in the Writing section. I would usually cover the combat and choreography here too, but there was none. Strange for the longest episode to not have a single fight scene, and even the only action at all was the 2 minutes of a fire spreading at a confusing rate. I think this episode was bogged down in trying to show the inner workings of the coven and the relationship between Mae and Osha that there wasn’t much room for anything else. I didn’t see anything here that stood out as expanding upon the High Republic era.
Performances and Characters
Again, Sol was the standout in the few scenes he was in. His actor portrayed great ranges of emotion and he continues to be the star of the show whenever he is on. The main Mother did a decent job with her voodoo-inspired performance, as well as translating her love to her children. Unfortunately, this episode was very bogged down by a distractingly poor performance from young Mae/Osha. I absolutely hate having to critique child actors, but this stood out to me as very badly acted and I have to point it out. From the lack of communicating Mae’s emotions believably, to the utterly confusing facial expressions and actions Osha was making at various events (the “I will kill you” and ensuing fire escape gave me major kid Leia in the forest vibes), I was unfortunately pulled out of believing the scenes due to some poor performances. No one else had enough screen time to even evaluate.
Finally, I want to address the characters from a perspective of who I felt like I should empathize with because I think this is one of the biggest missing components of this episode.
-
Osha - She was the clearest person we can relate with here. She doesn’t like being boxed into having no personal choice, she wants to blaze her own path, and others keep pressuring her to conform. However, I was very much not understanding why she was so set on wanting to be a Jedi. Surely, for the past 8 years, she has been told that the Jedi are not her friends, so I don’t know how she got the motivation to leave her mothers and sister and family to join a group that she has been told hates her…
-
Mae - From minute 1 of this episode, Mae is giving major child serial killer vibes. She is immediately shown to be torturing animals, extremely controlling and possessive of her sister, not free thinking and seeking approval of others, desiring personal power and respect, etc. She then tried to murder her dear twin in cold blood by locking her in a room and burning her to death. It’s beyond psychotic behavior. I thought this was a very strange route to take with her character, and this episode destroyed any sort of sympathy I had for her as an adult.
-
Sol - Even though the Jedi aren’t portrayed in a great light here, we can empathize with Sol because he shows genuine love to the children. He is depicted as the Jedi with wisdom and care in this group whereas the others appear cold and stoic.
-
Mother - I suppose we can empathize with her love for her children, but her wielding seemingly dark powers and creating life out of nothing is not something I empathize with. Everything I know about Star Wars lore points to this as a morally bad practice and one that the force itself will harshly rebel against. She leads a very black magic-inspired cult with incorrect views of the force and is just as intolerant of the Jedi as they are of her. If anything, she comes off as true neutral to me because she possesses basic decency toward others and is not entirely self-centered as we expect from Dark side users, but she isn’t someone to cheer for either. She seems to enjoy being worshipped and respected by her cult and speaks as though her word is truth, except only to her daughters.
Conclusion
Rating: 2.2/10 (I’d call it “very weak”, but not “horrible” or “unwatchable”)
Pros:
Another standout performance by Sol
Attempting to explore other views of the force
The worlds in day and night looked great
Cons:
Plot threads left open in a confusing, rather than intriguing, manner
Worst dialogue I have heard from D+ Star Wars yet, combined with bad deliveries
Newly presented ideologies are not internally coherent and do not align with the larger mythos of Star Wars
Best scenes:
- Sol giving Osha his lightsaber
- Sol testing Osha
- Opening garden scene (purely for the setting)
Worst Scenes:
- “I’ll kill you” Mae attempting to burn her sister alive (horrendous dialogue and awful characterization of Mae)
- Witch “ascension” chant (extremely goofy looking, felt like a corny fantasy b-movie)
- Bridge collapsing and dead Witches (these events were very confusing as they were playing out, and I was looking for any sort of explanation until the episode inexplicably ended with Mae in the garden looking for Osha. I know it’s a mystery, but mysteries have to be structured so that each clue and subsequent next question is a satisfying process, not a frustrating one)
